Going Backwards: How First Grade Erased My Daughter's Math Skills

Sat, 01 Nov 2025 09:00:00 -0600

Before first grade started, my daughter could multiply multi-digit numbers accurately and independently. She’d worked through Channie’s Double Digit Multiplication workbook and lattice multiplication worksheets, mastering both methods. Before that, she’d completed Channie’s addition and subtraction worksheets with regrouping. She’d worked through SAI’s Soroban Abacus Mind Math Book 1, learning to visualize place value as physical beads on rods and mentally add sequences of two-digit numbers.

When school ended in June, I gave her a multiplication worksheet—the same kind she’d done confidently the previous summer.

Enrichment on Acceleration Denied